My fists clenched. I was overcome with wanting to scream at her. Take her face in my hands and press it into the sand until she promised she’d never say anything about Mum marrying Gareth bloody Spence again. If I had to choose between that and crisping to death in a nuclear war I’d choose the nuking without hesitation. Edie didn’t get it. Her father was alive. He didn’t drown at sea. He wasn’t rotted to bones and wisps of hair in a box in an overcrowded graveyard. Edie’s life was dipped in gold. How could she ever understand? So I blocked out her comments about Gareth bloody Spence and thoughts of pushing her into the sand, and walked onwards in the direction of Sennen.

The two beaches – Gwenver, the one we were on, and Sennen Cove, the one we were heading for – were wide and sandy, and separated by a small inlet and a rocky outcrop which cut the two bays off from each other at high tide.

‘The tide’s on the turn,’ I said, as she caught up with me. ‘We haven’t long before the route back is under the sea.’

She was playing with a handful of sand, allowing it to trickle through her fingers like an egg timer. ‘What type of girl does your brother usually go out with?’

‘No idea,’ I said, surprised by the question. ‘He’s never brought a girl back. I don’t even know if he’s had a girlfriend.’

‘Really?’ she said. ‘He’s had sex though?’

‘Edie! God, I don’t want to think about my brother having sex, thank you very much.’ I shuddered and she laughed. I cast her a sideways look and said carefully, ‘Have you?’

‘Have I what? Had sex?’

I nodded.

‘Of course I have. Haven’t you?’

I flushed with embarrassment at both the question and my own naivety. ‘No. Not really. I mean, there was this boy. We…’ I hesitated, ‘did things. But it wasn’t very good.’

‘I’m not sure it ever is. What happened?’

I decided not to tell her what happened. It still made me die inside. So instead I shrugged. ‘Not much.’

‘What’s his name, this boyfriend of yours?’

‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘You made him up, didn’t you?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘So what’s his name then?’

My skin felt hot and red. ‘Kevin,’ I said at last, wincing as I did. ‘Kevin Chambers.’

‘Kevin?’ She exploded with laughter. ‘Oh my God, Tamsyn. You actually got it on with someone called Kevin?’

I crossed my arms and tried to push away the recollection of kissing Kevin Chambers, horrifyingly wet, his tongue circling my mouth like a washing machine, his stubby probing finger slipped down into my pants in a dark corner of the school disco.